by Dan Simmons
NINE
CEO Gladstone’s schedule that morning was a busy one. Tau Ceti Center has a twenty-three-hour day, which makes it convenient for the government to run on Hegemony Standard Time without totally destroying local diurnal rhythms. At 0545 hours, Gladstone met with her military advisors. At 0630 hours she breakfasted with two dozen of the most important senators and with representatives of the All Thing and the TechnoCore. At 0715 the CEO farcast to Renaissance Vector, where it was evening, to officially open the Hermes Medical Center in Cadua. At 0740 she ’cast back to Government House for a meeting with her top aides, including Leigh Hunt, to go over the speech she was to give to the Senate and All Thing at 1000 hours. At 0830 Gladstone met again with General Morpurgo and Admiral Singh for an update on the situation in the Hyperion system. At 0845 hours, she met with me.
“Good morning, M. Severn,” said the CEO. She was behind her desk in the office where I’d first met her three nights earlier. She waved her hand toward a buffet against the wall where hot coffee, tea, and caffta sat in sterling silver pots.
I shook my head and sat down. Three of the holographic windows showed white light, but the one to my left offered the 3-D map of Hyperion System that I had tried to decode in the War Room. It seemed to me that Ouster red now covered and infiltrated the system like dye dissolving and settling into a blue solution.
“I want to hear your dreams,” said CEO Gladstone.
“I want to hear why you abandoned them,” I said, voice flat. “Why you left Father Hoyt to die.”
Gladstone could not have been used to being spoken to in that tone, not after forty-eight years in the Senate and a decade and a half as CEO, but her only reaction was to raise one eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “So you do dream the real events.”
“Did you doubt it?”
She set down the work pad she had been holding, keyed it off, and shook her head. “Not really, but it is still a shock to hear about something that no one else in the Web knows about.”
“Why did you deny them the use of the Consul’s ship?”
Gladstone swiveled to look up at the window where the tactical display shifted and changed as new updates changed the flow of red, the retreat of blue, the movement of planets and moons, but if the military situation was to have been part of her explanation, she abandoned that approach. She swiveled back. “Why would I have to explain any executive decision to you, M. Severn? What is your constituency? Whom do you represent?”
“I represent those five people and a baby you left stranded on Hyperion,” I said. “Hoyt could have been saved.”
Gladstone made a fist and tapped her lower lip with a curved forefinger. “Perhaps,” she said. “And perhaps he was already dead. But that wasn’t the issue, was it?”
I sat back in the chair. I had not bothered to bring a sketchbook along, and my fingers ached to hold something. “What is, then?”
“Do you remember Father Hoyt’s story … the story he told during their voyage to the Tombs?” asked Gladstone.
“Yes.”
“Each of the pilgrims is allowed to petition the Shrike for one favor. Tradition says that the creature grants one wish, while denying the others and murdering those he denies. Do you remember what Hoyt’s wish was?”
I paused. Recalling incidents from the pilgrims’ past was like trying to remember details of last week’s dreams. “He wanted the cruciforms removed,” I said. “He wanted freedom for both Father Duré’s … soul, DNA, whatever … and for himself.”
“Not quite,” said Gladstone. “Father Hoyt wanted to die.”
I stood up, almost knocking my chair over, and strode to the pulsing map. “That’s pure bullshit,” I said. “Even if he did, the others had an obligation to save him … and so did you. You let him die.”
“Yes.”
“Just as you’re going to let the rest of them die?”
“Not necessarily,” said CEO Meina Gladstone. “That is their will … and the Shrike’s, if such a creature actually exists. All I know at this point is that their pilgrimage is too important to allow them a means of … retreat … at the moment of decision.”
“Whose decision? Theirs? How can the lives of six or seven people … and a baby … affect the outcome of a society of a hundred and fifty billion?” I knew the answer to that, of course. The AI Advisory Council as well as the Hegemony’s less sentient predictors had chosen the pilgrims very carefully. But for what? Unpredictability. They were ciphers that matched the ultimate enigma of the entire Hyperion equation. Did Gladstone know that, or did she know only what Councilor Albedo and her own spies told her? I sighed and returned to my chair.
“Did your dream tell you what the fate of Colonel Kassad was?” asked the CEO.
“No. I awoke before they returned to the Sphinx to seek shelter from the storm.”
Gladstone smiled slightly. “You realize, M. Severn, that for our purposes it would be more convenient to have you sedated, prompted by the same truthtalk your Philomel friends used, and connected to subvocalizers for a more constant report on the events on Hyperion.”
I returned her smile. “Yes,” I said, “that would be more convenient. But it would be less than convenient for you if I slipped away into the Core via the datasphere and left my body behind. Which is precisely what I will do if put under duress again.”
“Of course,” said Gladstone. “That is precisely what I would do if put in such circumstances. Tell me, M. Severn, what is it like in the Core? What is it like in that distant place where your consciousness truly resides?”
“Busy,” I said. “Did you want to see me for anything else today?”
Gladstone smiled again and I sensed that it was a true smile, not the politician’s weapon she used so well. “Yes,” she said, “I did have something else in mind. Would you like to go to Hyperion? The real Hyperion?”
“The real Hyperion?” I echoed stupidly. I felt my fingers and toes tingle as a strange sense of excitement suffused me. My consciousness might truly reside in the Core, but my body and brain were all too human, all too susceptible to adrenaline and other random chemicals.
Gladstone nodded. “Millions of people want to go there. Farcast to somewhere new. Watch the war from close up.” She sighed and moved her work pad. “The idiots.” She looked up at me, and her brown eyes were serious. “But I want someone to go there and report back to me in person. Leigh is using one of the new military farcast terminals this morning, and I thought that you might join him. There might not be time to set down on Hyperion itself, but you would be in-system.”
I thought of several questions and was embarrassed by the first one that emerged. “Will it be dangerous?”
Neither Gladstone’s expression nor tone changed. “Possibly. Although you will be far behind the lines, and Leigh has explicit instructions not to expose himself … or you … to any obvious risk.”
Obvious risk, I thought. But how many less-than-obvious-risks were there in a war zone, near a world where a creature like the Shrike roamed free? “Yes,” I said, “I’ll go. But there’s one thing … ”
“Yes?”
“I need to know why you want me to go. It seems that if you just want me for my connection to the pilgrims, you’re running a needless risk in sending me away.”
Gladstone nodded. “M. Severn, it’s true that your connection to the pilgrims … although somewhat tenuous … is of interest to me. But it is also true that I am interested in your observations and evaluations Your observations.”
“But I’m nothing to you,” I said. “You don’t know who else I might be reporting to, deliberately or otherwise. I’m a creature of the TechnoCore.”
“Yes,” said Gladstone, “but you also may be the least-affiliated person on Tau Ceti Center at this moment, perhaps in the entire Web. Also, your observations are those of a trained poet, a man whose genius I respect.”
I barked a laugh. “He was a genius,” I said. “I’m a simulacrum. A drone. A caricature.”
/> “Are you so sure?” asked Meina Gladstone.
I held up empty hands. “I haven’t written a line of poetry in the ten months I have been alive and aware in this strange afterlife,” I said. “I do not think in poetry. Isn’t that proof enough that this Core retrieval project is a sham? Even my false name is an insult to a man infinitely more talented than I will ever be … Joseph Severn was a shade in comparison to the real Keats, but I sully his name by using it.”
“That may be true,” said Gladstone. “And it may not. In either case, I’ve requested that you go with M. Hunt on this brief trip to Hyperion.” She paused. “You have no … duty … to go. In more than one sense, you are not even a citizen of the Hegemony. But I would appreciate it if you did go.”
“I’ll go,” I said again, hearing my own voice as if from a distance.
“Very good. You’ll need warm clothes. Wear nothing that would come loose or cause embarrassment in free-fall, although there is little likelihood that you will encounter that. Meet M. Hunt in the primary Government House farcaster nexus in …” She glanced at her comlog. “ … twelve minutes.”
I nodded and turned to go.
“Oh, M. Severn … ”
I paused by the door. The old woman behind the desk suddenly looked rather small and very tired.
“Thank you, M. Severn,” she said.
It was true that millions wanted to farcast to the war zone. The All Thing was shrill with petitions, arguments for letting civilians ‘cast to Hyperion, requests by cruise lines to run brief excursions, and demands by planetary politicians and Hegemony representatives to be allowed to tour the system on “fact-finding missions.” All such requests had been denied. Web citizens—especially Web citizens with power and influence—were not used to being denied access to new experiences, and for the Hegemony, all-out war remained one of the few experiences still untried.
But the CEO’s office and the FORCE authorities remained adamant: no civilian or unauthorized farcasting to the Hyperion system, no un-censored newsteep coverage. In an age where no information was inaccessible, no travel denied, such exclusion was maddening and tantalizing.
I met M. Hunt at the executive farcaster nexus after showing my authorization pip to an even dozen security nodes. Hunt was wearing black wool, undecorated but evocative of the FORCE uniforms present everywhere in this section of Government House. I had had little time to change, returning to my apartments only to grab a loose vest with many pockets to hold drawing materials and a 35-mm imager.
“Ready?” said Hunt. The basset-hound face did not look pleased to see me. He carried a plain black valise.
I nodded.
Hunt gestured toward a FORCE transport technician, and a onetime portal shimmered into existence. I knew that the thing was tuned to our DNA signatures and would admit no one else. Hunt took a breath and stepped through. I watched the quicksilver portal surface ripple after his passage like a stream returning to calm after the slightest of breezes, and then I stepped through myself.
It was rumored that the original farcaster prototypes had offered no sensation during transition and that the AI and human designers had altered the machinery to add that vague prickling, ozone-charged feeling to give the traveler a sense of having traveled. Whatever the truth of that, my skin was still alive with tension as I took a step away from the portal, paused, and looked around.
It’s strange but true that war-going spacecraft have been depicted in fiction, film, holo, and stimsim for more than eight hundred years; even before humankind had left Old Earth in anything but atmosphere-skimming converted airplanes, their flatfilms had shown epic space battles, huge interstellar dreadnoughts with incredible armament lunging through space like streamlined cities. Even the spate of recent war holies after the Battle of Bressia showed great fleets battling it out at distances two ground soldiers would find claustrophobic, ships ramming and firing and burning like Greek triremes packed into the straits of Artemisium.
It’s little wonder then that my heart was pounding and my palms were a bit moist as I stepped onto the flagship of the fleet, expecting to emerge onto the broad bridge of a warship out of the holies, giant screens showing enemy ships, klaxons sounding, craggy commanders huddled over the tactical command panels as the ship lurched first right, then left.
Hunt and I were standing in what could have been a narrow corridor of a power plant. Color-coded pipes twisted everywhere, occasional handholds and airtight hatches at regular intervals suggested that we were indeed in a spacecraft, state-of-the-art diskey and interact panels showed that the corridor served some purpose other than access to elsewhere, but the overall effect was one of claustrophobia and primitive technology. I half expected to see wires running from circuit nodes. A vertical shaft intersected our corridor; other narrow, cluttered avenues were visible through other hatches.
Hunt looked at me and shrugged slightly. I wondered if it was possible that we had farcast to the wrong destination.
Before either of us said anything, a young FORCE:space ensign in black battle dress appeared from one of the side corridors, saluted Hunt, and said, “Welcome to HS Hebrides, gentlemen. Admiral Nashita has asked me to convey his compliments and to invite you to the combat control center. If you will follow me, please.” With that the young ensign wheeled, reached for a rung, and pulled himself into a cramped vertical shaft.
We followed as best we could, Hunt struggling not to drop his valise and me trying not to have my hands ground under Hunt’s heels as we climbed. After only a few yards, I realized that the gravity was far less than one-standard here, was not, in fact, gravity at all, but felt more like a multitude of small but insistent hands pressing me “down.” I knew about spacecraft using a class-one containment field throughout a ship to simulate gravity, but this was my first direct experience of it. It was not a truly pleasant sensation; the constant pressure was rather like leaning into a wind, and the effect added to the claustrophobic qualities of the narrow corridors, small hatches, and equipment-cluttered bulkheads.
The Hebrides was a Three-C ship, Communication-Control-Command, and the combat control center was its heart and brain—but it was not a very impressive heart and brain. The young ensign passed us through three airtight hatches, led us down a final corridor past Marine guards, saluted, and left us in a room perhaps twenty yards square, but one so crowded with noise, personnel and equipment that one’s first instinct was to step back outside the hatch to get a breath of air.
There were no giant screens, but dozens of young FORCE:space officers hunkered over cryptic displays, sat enmeshed in stimsim apparatus, or stood before pulsing callups which seemed to extend from all six bulkheads. Men and women were lashed into their chairs and sensory cradles, with the exception of a few officers—most looking more like harried bureaucrats than craggy warriors—who wandered the narrow aisles, patting subordinates on the back, barking for more information, and plugging into consoles with their own implant jacks. One of these men came over in a hurry, looked at both of us, saluted me, and said, “M. Hunt?”
I nodded toward my companion.
“M. Hunt,” said the overweight young Commander, “Admiral Nashita will see you now.”
The commander of all Hegemony forces in the Hyperion system was a small man with short white hair, skin far smoother than his age suggested, and a fierce scowl that seemed carved in place. Admiral Nashita wore high-necked dress black with no rank insignia except for the single red-dwarf sun on his collar. His hands were blunt and quite powerful-looking, but the nails were recently manicured. The Admiral sat on a small dais surrounded by equipment and quiescent callups. The bustle and efficient madness seemed to flow around him like a fast stream around an impervious rock.
“You’re the messenger from Gladstone,” he said to Hunt. “Who’s this?”
“My aide,” said Leigh Hunt.
I resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow.
“What do you want?” asked Nashita. “As you see, we’re busy.�
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Leigh Hunt nodded and glanced around. “I have some materials for you, Admiral. Is there anyplace we can go for privacy?”
Admiral Nashita grunted, passed his palm over a rheosense, and the air behind me grew denser, coalescing into a semisolid mist as the containment field reified. The noise of the combat control center disappeared. The three of us were in a small igloo of quiet.
“Hurry it up,” said Admiral Nashita.
Hunt unlocked the valise and removed a small envelope with a Government House symbol on the back. “A private communication from the Chief Executive,” said Hunt. “To be read at your leisure, Admiral.”
Nashita grunted and set the envelope aside.
Hunt set a larger envelope on the desk. “And this is a hard copy of the motion of the Senate regarding the prosecution of this … ah … military action. As you know, the will of the Senate is for this to be a speedy exercise of force to achieve limited objectives, with as little loss of life as possible, followed by the standard offer of help and protection to our new … colonial asset.”
Nashita’s scowl twitched slightly. He made no move to touch or read the communication containing the will of the Senate. “Is that all?”
Hunt took his time responding. “That is all, unless you wish to relay a personal message to the CEO through me, Admiral.”
Nashita stared. There was no active hostility in his small, black eyes, only an impatience that I guessed would not be quenched until those eyes were dimmed by death. “I have private fatline access to the Chief Executive,” said the Admiral. “Thank you very much, M. Hunt. No return messages at this time. Now if you will kindly return to the midships farcaster nexus and let me get on with prosecuting this military action.”
The containment field collapsed around us, and noise flowed in like water over a melting ice dam.
“There is one other thing,” said Leigh Hunt, his soft voice almost lost under the technobabble of the combat center.